Thursday, September 14, 2006

Wing clipping

Before she started to make regular lunch trips over the fence, and to maintain good neighbourly relations, we decided it would be wise to clip her wings. I did plenty of research on this matter, and the first website I came across nearly put me off altogether. I opened this link and was concerned to see that the list of essential tools I would need for the job included pliers, the phone number of my vet and a wall mounted dispatcher! (This is a device that enables you to break a chickens spinal chord effectively)

I only wanted to stop her demolishing my neighbour's begonias, not send her to the celestial allotment in the sky! All that talk of siphoninging blood' and 'dying within minutes'...

Luckily the next site calmed me down a bit, and the third site had a handy diagram showing where to cut, so we attempted the operation last night. The worst part was actually catching the little buggers.

Nick grabbed them in turn and held them firmly on the patio table. I held out the right wing and cut off the feathers as shown on the diagram using the kitchen scissors. It was a bit hard to see exactly where the blood in the feathers started, but there seemed to be no pain and no syphoning blood so we must have done it correctly.

Anyway, it worked because all 3 of them tried to fly away as soon as we let go of them, went crashing down lopsidedly, looked very confused, and went to bed early in a huff.

I just hope it's enough to overcome the allure of the garden next door